After a series of comercially successful screen adaptations of his plays, Tennessee Williams struck bad luch with This Property Is Condemned, a drama directed by the young Sydney Pollack and suffering from a sompromised vision, on which five different writers worked on the script.
Despite an allstar cast, includung Natalie Wood, Robert Redford, Kate Reid, Charles Bronson, Robert Blake and Mary Badham, the eventual movie turned out to be soggy and sentimental.
Grade: C
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Theatrical poster by Frank McCarthy
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The screenplay, inspired by the 1946 one-act play of the same name by Williams, was written by Francis Ford Coppola, Fred Coe and Edith Sommer.
The Depression-era story takes place in the fictional Mississippi town of Dodson.
It begins wheb Owen Legate (Robert Redford), a rep of the railroad that provides the town’s economic base, arrives on a unpopular errand.
Natalie Wood plays Alva Starr, a pretty flirt white trash who finds herself stuck in the small town and is attracted to the handsome stranger.
The film is noted for its song “Wish me a Rainbow,” written by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans, which is heard at the beginning and the ending of the film. (Ed Ames, Astrud Gilberto, and Lawrence Welk have all recorded cover versions).
The tale is framed by a story in which an unkempt girl, Willie Starr, relates the story of her sister Alva to Tom, a boy whom she meets on the abandoned railroad tracks of Dodson.
The film, a troubled production from the start due to tensions between the two producers, tured out to be both a critical and commercial failure.
Fortunately, neither the career of Redford nor that of Natalie Wood was impacted, The duo had collaborated successfully in Inside Daisy Glover, which was released several months before.
Credits:
Directed by Sydney Pollack
Screenplay by Francis Ford Coppola, Fred Coe, Edith Sommer, based on This Property Is Condemned, 1946 play by Tennessee Williams
Produced by John Houseman, Ray Stark
Cinematography James Wong Howe
Edited by Adrienne Fazan
Music by Kenyon Hopkins
“Wish Me a Rainbow” written by Jay Livingston & Ray Evans
Production company: Seven Arts Productions
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Release date: August 3, 1966
Running time: 110 minutes
Budget $4.62 million
Box office $2.6 million
